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The $3 Billion Plan to Turn Hoover Dam Into a Giant Battery

Tags: energy

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  1. Akir
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    This is actually a little bit ingenious. The biggest problems with renewable energy is that it is not available at the times when we need them. The obvious answer to that is to store the excess...

    This is actually a little bit ingenious.

    The biggest problems with renewable energy is that it is not available at the times when we need them. The obvious answer to that is to store the excess energy in batteries, but batteries are not sustainable. We will eventually run out of Lithium.

    The best part about this is that it has actually been achieved before in a much smaller scale. There was a university dorm in Europe built as a proof of concept to be self-sustaining. Part of the dorm was a gym, where the equipment was built into a pneumatic system that would pump water up to a storage tank on the roof. The water at the top would then fall down through a turbine as more electricity was needed, thus powering the building.

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